The Class
by MargaeryMargarine
Summary: [Winter Soldier Spoilers] Picks up where the movie left off. Natasha and Fury talk over a pack of cigarettes and unbind their agent/director relationship with a topic that had cost them S.H.I.E.L.D.


_**Disclaimer: I do not own Captain America: The Winter Soldier as well as anything else affiliated with Marvel. **_

A/N: I came back from a second showing of TWS today. Thought it'd be good for me to loosen up with a oneshot to take my mind off my other fic for a while. Hope this is ok :)

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**The Class**

She found Fury leaning against a lamp-post, a cigarette flickering between his teeth. From her twenty yards away she could single him out easily. What of the others? Who else could look at this slumped, hands-in-pockets guy with a hoodie and a pair of sunglasses obscuring his face and call him the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D? No, no. The former director of the _former_ S.H.I.E.L.D. Perhaps that differentiated it. A crumbled organization blew away fast in this ever-whirling world, and no one was left to care.

Yet if by "care" she extended the definition to include lesser merits, there might very well be people eager to dig up his grave, literally and figuratively. Those short-cut leather jackets and shades could only veil him for so long. With him going into Europe... he might as well rip his disguises off. But this was Fury; the man whose deceptions knotted into such tight, intricate knots that even when you snip off a few tangles the knots held, just the way he held together albeit the list of injuries he had recited to her like a memorized grocery list.

Natasha walked to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and for moment they both gazed across the street at the police officers coming out of a café with cups of coffees.

"Do I want to dump those cuppas over their heads, I ponder." Fury took a long suck on his cigarette. "On a more intelligent thought, I've derived that I'd rather dump them into their pants."

"Assailants attacked you, Director Fury, not real officers. You know-"

"I goddamn know. Don't ruin my fun, Romanoff. And drop the 'Director.' I mean nothing more to you now than that lady working the café or that hobo three streets down."

"That's not true... Nick." Natasha kicked an empty soda can by her feet.

"Then you're not passing the class. You should be more distrustful than ever after what's happened, _spy." _Fury blew smoke through his nose, and let the last gossamers of it through his mouth. "What'chu gonna do with yourself now? I've heard from everyone but you."

"Hill and her job with Stark. I don't know who's gonna drive who crazy." Natasha allowed herself a smile.

"I'm talking about you, Romanoff."

"I thought you want me to pass the class."

Fury turned to her, gave an amused "hmmf," and flipped out his packet of Marlboro Reds to hand her one. Natasha took it. He flicked his lighter over the tobacco end, and a small blue flame marred the white paper casing to tiny embers and coals.

"You've been smoking all these years, or is this-" Natasha cut short her own sentence as she jammed the cigarette into her mouth and drew through the filter. "-for you new profile description?"

"Yep. New life, new me."

"If you keep this hobby up you won't be so new for long."

"Says the woman pullin' on hers like a baby for their mother's milk."

She took the stick out of her mouth and dangled it in two fingers by her side, swinging. Yet seconds later she rushed it back between her lips and drew on it again. Fury looked at her with a mix of a smile and a scowl. Damn, she missed his eyepatch. At least then she had one eye to dissect his expression with.

"Back to the point, where you headed?" Fury asked.

"I think you know. Anywhere with a new cover, where else?"

"That's a tough place to head to. Looks about the only road for you though."

"Reckon Stark'll let me back as his P.A?" Natasha chuckled to her own idea. "I can use a detour. Maybe if I detour long enough I'll sway off the road."

"Stark Industries' overstocked with ex-S.H.I.E.L.D agents. Stark had the nerve to make a waiting list for the ones that didn't make it. Sorry, that's a roadblock for you."

"I've heard similar with the CIA and FBI."

"All my little fleas, leaving their host to infect the world. I like that."

They didn't talk anymore until they had exhausted the entire box of cigarettes save one.

Fury lit it for her. "That's the last one for you for the next five years. Make it count. And if that's my last order to you then so be it."

It was his way to kick her away, flick her off the decaying carcass of S.H.I.E.L.D to latch onto the thick fur of something else, wherever that was. Her heart began to knock, then slam, and wood splinters exploded and dug deep into her chest and she crammed the cigarette in her mouth. When she sighed an exhale the smoke swirled like white chalk dust. The words plummeted from her mouth like an ill-rehearsed school presentation and—

"Mr. Fury, thank you for all the-"

"Oh, 'the fuck out of here." He clapped her on the shoulder and laughed.

Natasha winced from the impact on her nearby bullet wound but disciplined the pain away. Who was she to savor pain in front of a man who had gotten blown up like a ragdoll? They shook hands. She walked away. He shouted to her disappearing figure:

"Class dismissed, Romanoff."

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Thanks for reading and review/fave if you guys want :)


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